James Bond: GoldenEye is a very enjoyable game. The campaign has just the right difficulty, and the multi player is fun.
In short, the campaign mode is awesome. The story is immersive, if not a little predictable, after all, all the James Bond movies follow relatively the same plot line. The star of course, is James Bond, portrayed by Daniel Craig, and not Pierce Brosnan (not that I care). The first time through, the cut-scenes are really nice to watch, and they portray the story nicely. I especially liked the part where the conversation was in, what sounded to me, authentic Russian. The problem is, you can't skip the cut –scenes – and this gets especially annoying after multiple playthroughs or time trial (I will cover this later). The guards talk about various things, and sometimes, I find it enjoyable to shoot them in the head mid-sentence. Anyways, the AI is relatively smart, and you really can't go all guns blazing on the higher difficulties, especially 007 classic. That mode is a really good addition. It stresses conserving ammo, and stealth. In 007 classic, one mistake will lead to not being able to complete the mission. The campaign has nice variety, and playing on various difficulty levels will result in finding new rooms, and sometimes just new ways of getting from one place to another, so this is pretty refreshing when replaying missions.
Time Trial is another enjoyable addition. Basically, you have to complete a mission within a certain time limit, and I don't know if I am the only one, but I have had some real trouble completing any of the time trial times (I personally think that they are unrealistic – the only possibility is to sprint and go all guns blazing I think). The main problem is the cut scenes. In the first mission, there is a 10 min time limit. The cut scenes take up about 2 min and 30 seconds, leaving 7 min and 30 seconds actual game time – seems unfair, right? I beat the actual fighting with 30 sec to spare, and then the cut scene came, and pushed me over 13 sec. In summary, the time should be paused for the cut scenes.
The piece de resistance of the game is the multiplayer. Like almost all other FPSs, the game has experience points that you get for kills or doing something – like shooting a mine to kill someone, or having the first or last kill of a game – this addition makes it enjoyable. The higher the rank, the more and better weapons are unlocked, as well as attachments (silencers, laser pointers, thermal scopes, sights, etc.), as well as gadgets (armor, fast reload, more damage per bullet, more bullets in magazines, etc.), and there are five open boxes to customize the load-out. There are also pre-set ones, but once someone reaches about level 30, they become mostly obsolete, due to the fact that better ones are available. The exception is the Kallos with a grenade launcher – the grenade launcher is not unlocked until level 57, I think. The multi-player results in you needing to your brain as much as possible to outwit your opponents. Having a strategy is really helpful. The players are usually pretty good, and the playing does not get really repetitive. There are many game modes, like Conflict (free-for-all), Team Conflict (4-on-4), Black Box (one team tries to download data, the other team tries to destroy it), GoldenEye (Hack sites to move GoldenEye satellite towards the other team's base), Golden Gun (players try to collect the golden gun, which results in one-hit kills, free-for all), License to Kill (free-for-all with no HUD, unlocked at level 25), Team License to Kill (4-on-4 with no HUD, unlocked at 30), Classic (play as Bond villains, unlocked at 35). The multiplayer will have you coming back for more, and is usually pretty fun. The waiting is about 30 sec, so its bearable. The only downside is, you can't speak with other players, so it gets a little lonely killing your opponents, and not being able to rub it in their face ().
In Conclusion, James Bond GoldenEye is a very enjoyable game and worth your time. It is just at the right difficulty, possibly a little harder. Highly recommended for anyone who has time to kill (or be killed).